Homicide à Wall Street

Lackluster thriller that fails to deliver on its promising premise. The film follows private detective Billy Dee Williams as he becomes embroiled in a complex web of murder and deception.

Despite a talented cast, including Morgan Fairchild and Vanity, the film's acting is subpar. The dialogue is clunky, and the characters' motivations are unclear. The plot twists and turns, but the surprises are predictable and lack impact.

One of the major problems with "Deadly Illusion" is its poor pacing. The film drags on for long stretches, with too much repetition and not enough tension. The action scenes are few and far between, and when they do arrive, they're poorly choreographed and lack excitement.

The film's attempts at style and glamour fall flat, with too much emphasis on Vanity's looks and not enough on her acting abilities. Morgan Fairchild fares slightly better, but her character is underdeveloped and lacks depth.

Overall, "Deadly Illusion" is a disappointing thriller that fails to deliver on its promise. With poor acting, a lackluster plot, and too much repetition, it's a film that's easily skippable.

I was hired as an extra and was waiting on the set for the day to start when Cohen called me over. "Hey kid - you an actor?" I thought, well that's why I'm here, but he added "I mean can you do lines?" I said sure, and he handed me two pages and said "Learn this." It was the Assistant District Attorney's scene with Billy Dee William's character - and I was beside myself with excitement - and fear, as it included a fairly long rip-him-a-new-one monologue. Apparently, the actor they'd hired was a no show. But about 15 minutes into my "star is born" opportunity, the actor showed - he'd been stuck in traffic. The director promised to "throw me a bone", and I ended up upgraded to playing the dead body on the slab next to the naked girl in the morgue scene.

Later in the filming, I came on again as Joe Cortese's stand-in, but had to leave the set later in the day with a 102-degree fever. But before falling ill, had a good time with BDW (one of the nicest guys ever on set) and playing cards with the Teamsters between shots.

Heard later that this film production managed to get the Staten Island Ferry stuck on a sandbar during filming - a first in the Ferry's history!

Billy Dee Williams plays Hamberger, the rogue private detective who gets the girl(s) and solves the case. You really don't need to know more, as this is the entire movie! Morgan Fairchild is still beautiful, even with the 80's big hair look. The plot line had initial promise - Hamberger is approached by an unknown person to kill that persons wife. This person and the wife both turn out to be other than advertised, but there the story started to lose my interest. Gratuitous sex and violence have always been par for the course in Hollywood of course. Here, the obvious intent to sell tickets with this fare, as well as - admittedly - one of the hottest actresses of the time, soured me.

This film essentially begins with a New York City private detective known simply by the last name of "Hamberger" (Billy Dee Williams) being offered $100,000 by a rich man named "Alex Burton" (Dennis Hallahan) to kill his wife. Although he has no intention of doing going through with it, Hamberger accepts a down payment of $25,000 and then heads out to the house where the man's wife lives. When he gets there, he tells "Sharon Burton" (Morgan Fairchild) of her husband's murderous plans and, after spending the night with her, returns to his apartment. Not long after that he is arrested for the murder of Sharon Burton. However, upon being taken to the morgue he meets the real "Alex Burton" (now played by John Beck) and discovers that the body identified as being that of Sharon Burton is not the same woman he met at the house. And since his prints have been recovered from that house, he realizes that he has been set up. To that effect, he is given only a couple of days to find the real killer or be charged with the crime. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that-considering the cast-I honestly expected this to be a better movie than it actually turned out to be. As it was, the acting wasn't that good and the plot was so completely unrealistic that it was nothing short of laughable. That being said, I cannot in good conscience rate this film any higher than I have. Slightly below average.

My review was written in October 1987 after a Midtown Manhattan screening.

"Deadly Illusion", formerly titled "Love You to Death", is a very entertaining tongue-in-cheek homage to film noir, spotlighting a charming, funny performance by lead Billy Dee Wiliams; Absence of exploitation values and a poverty row budget puts this effort at a disadvantage in today's action film market, however.

Writer-director Larry Cohen (he began helming this film but producers chose Willaim Tannen of "Flashpoint" to complete the direction) successfuly paid homage to the Edward G. Robinson style of gangster pic with his Fred Williamson-starrer "Black Caesar", and here harkens back to the lovable scoundrel personified (pre-"The Thin Man") by William Powell. Williams plays Hamberger, a detective with no license whose habit of causing accidental deaths is a career detriment (pic's body count is very high and a source of black humor).

He's hired by Dennis Hallahan to kill his wife. Williams accepts the $25,000 retainer, but goes to warn the wife, played by Morgan Fairchild in a black wig. She beds him and splits, but all hell breaks loose when the real wife is found murdered and Hallahan turns out to be an imposter (John Beck plays the real husband). While playing cat and mouse with his old buddy cop Joe Cortese, Williams finally tracks down a drugrunning ring set in the world of models, led by Fairchild (in her familiar blonde persona).

With very clever dialog by Cohen (including a throwaway line that predicts a stock market crash, not bad for a film shot last December), Williams excels at shtick mocking his pretty boy image. One funny scene has him crashing a fashion show and enjoying the fact that he's mistaken for Reggie Jackson. As his girlfriend, Vanity provides the requisite beauty and her acting is becoming more natural tan in her previous films, while Fairchild is delicious as the baddie with many a double entendre. Joe Spinell has a cute bit whipping out a gun and taking a hostage when the firearms license bureu won't honor his request for a permit.

Using hidden camera techniques and other evidence of guerrilla filmmaking, pic gives the ilusion of some scale, but too many scenes are static talkathons, reminiscent of quota quickies. It's the dialog and performances that carry the picture.